I made quite a hobby out of collecting used laserdiscs 10 years or so ago and still have a rather large collection as a result.
A few things about the format:
Laserdiscs were produced mainly between 1978 and 1999.
Video:
The video is analog with a video resolution between that of VHS and DVD, I believe the resolution is 420i.
Because the video is analog, the quality of the player has a much larger impact on the quality of the resulting video than is the case with a DVD player.
Output is typically offered via Composite and S-Video connections. Know however that the Composite connection is actually the superior connection for most purposes with this format. That is because the video that is written on the disc is basically a composite video signal. Using the S-Video port on the player instead of the composite jack only means you are using the comb filter inside the player instead of the one inside your TV. Since most players are old at this point you are likely to get better results using the comb filter inside your TV.
Audio:
Originally the format contained analog audio tracks but later on was updated to include PCM (CD audio) tracks.
So a typical laserdisc will have 2 analog audio channels and 2 digital audio channels.
The 2-channel PCM stereo track is usually your best bet. It is almost always encoded with Dolby Surround and you will get good surround results if you use a reciever that has any version of Dolby-Prologic.
Later laserdiscs were offered with both Dolby Digital and DTS however be aware that the implementation is different than with DVDs. DTS laserdiscs have the DTS information replacing the digital PCM tracks, so you would be able to play it using a digital connection from the laserdisc player to any receiver that can decode DTS.
Dolby Digital's laserdisc implementation is completely convoluted however. Instead of replacing the PCM audio with a Dolby Digital track, the Dolby Digital information is instead encoded on one of the analog tracks. This requires a separate component called an AC-3 Demodulator which would convert the Dolby Digital on the analog track into a digital signal that your receiver can use. Unfortunately AC-3 demodulators are typically more expensive than the players themselves and not all players even have connections for an AC-3 Demodulator.
So your best bet really is just to use the Digital stereo PCM tracks. This isn't nearly as bad as you might think since it is CD quality rather than compressed DTS/Dolby Digital.
Also the audio tracks on most laserdiscs don't have any dynamic range compression compared to most DVDs.
On the Top Gun laserdisc the PCM audio track is actually the same Dolby Surround track that was used in the theaters at the time. The Saturn V launch scene in Apollo 13 is absolutely breathtaking and worlds better than the audio track on the DVD. Watching this scene actually caused my subwoofer amp to clip because of all the low-frequency content in that scene that is neutered on the DVD version in the name of Dynamic Range compression.
Laserdisc is a format that never became mainstream, and as a result, the products and the features on the discs were tailored toward the video enthusiasts of the time. The resulting intense dynamic movie-theater style audio tracks are nearly enough to make it worth it on some movies.
My best laserdisc player is a Panasonic LX-1000U that was made in 1990. I run the composite output into the composite input on my HTPC where I use DScaler to de-interlace the video which makes it look considerably more crisp on my bigscreen.
The format is a lot of fun and even players can be found for <$40 most of the time. Video quality isn't half bad if you have good equipment, approaching DVD quality with a good disc and player.
